ESCAPING THE PITFALLS OF COMPARISON.

Comparison as a concept is something I’ve pondered for a while.

“Is it truly as bad as people paint it to be?”

“What makes it bad? Is it comparison itself or HOW it is done?”

Little did I know, that a spontaneous Saturday morning would unveil the clarity I had always yearned for.

It was a regular morning, I was making breakfast and my boyfriend, as usual, was working on art while listening to YouTube videos as background noise.

After cooking, I sat with him and we listened to this particular podcast episode by Mark Manson, titled ‘What Nobody Tells You About Getting Rich,’ featuring Morgan Housel. In this episode, Morgan, in response to Mark’s question “why do humans attach so much moral value, both positive and negative, to wealth?” said:

“Humans are wired for status and not happiness. And wealth is the most tangible form of status that exists.”

He also mentioned how we put so much value in a degree because it’s a very tangible, easy-to-identify form of status. In his words:

“money is just the scoreboard for so many people. And the problem here — the right word is definitely “problem” because it’s the cause of so much anxiety in society — is that people measure their status and their net worth relative to people around them.”

This is where the topic of comparison arose as a discussion. He asked me what I thought, and I provided an illustration of humans who lived thousands of years ago before commerce, economics, wealth, or education as we know them today existed. All that mattered to people during that time was survival. To find food, avoid getting attacked by wild animals, protecting their families, and a place to rest their heads. But then, as time progressed, evolution occurred, and technology advanced. With these changes, priorities started to shift in alignment with the present-day society and with it came new social restrictions.

These restrictions motivated people to align their passions and goals with the criteria for survival, comfort, relevance, status, and wealth. Using others who thrived, irrespective of social restrictions, as a reference for the standard of living.

We then narrowed down the discussion to the creative community, given that we’re both artistically Inclined, exploring how expectations, comparison, and contentment often intertwine and feed into each other. Considering at times, expectations arise from external sources, fueled by comparisons and a lack of patience. For there is a tendency to be unaware of how crucial it is to recognize that the journey to the next level will always demand time and effort.

In retrospect, Our conversation really left me with a lot to think about. It is indeed true that ‘comparison is the thief of joy’ but life isn’t so black and white though. Is it? There are grey areas we tend to neglect — the nuance, and specifically, the nuance of comparison.

What if it’s just an imbalance of emotions? The inability to consciously navigate admiration?

For example, there is an instance where the observed “result” of another — their attained success or rise in skill — could motivate a subconscious demoralization of one’s own capabilities or potential.

The feeling of : “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t think I can be as good as them” and it ends there.

There is also an instance where, after the observation of the admired “result”, it triggers a sense of awe by creating a connection that is wrought from comparison, then transitions into a desire to reach the level of outcome which was instantaneously observable. This is the point of “trail.”

The next instance is where after the trail(often short-lived), the desired result doesn’t instantly yield, and a sense of frustration begins to engulf the mind. It easily begins to feel as though you’re incapable, and the why, in relation to comparison as the basis of “action,” is this:

From an observer’s perspective, we experience ONLY the result of the person we admire and not the process it took to get there. Such that, when motivated to take action, it registers subconsciously to expect our own result to be instantaneous, to easily surrender to us in the same way we “took in” the object of our admiration.

There is comparison made by self, against self.

There is also comparison made by self, propelling self.

That is, we are responsible for the negative impact of comparison, which can be a reflection of or related to our thought patterns and mindset. This just means, in the same way we don’t sometimes identify the subconscious effect, it can also be consciously identified. Signifying, it can be worked on and navigated into a structure of thought that alchemizes it into something healthy.

This is the path that brings into consciousness the aspect of process, ratifying the essence of effort, consistency, commitment, and chance. With the right mindset, you’d grow into a higher level of understanding that everyone’s process (journey) is different, and success, as an extension of a person’s work, is evidence that the stage — the world — is big enough to accommodate anyone willing to task through.

Hence, dear reader, I hope this serves as a harmonizing force to any form of cognitive dissonance you may have held as I did before this peculiar morning, and in turn, you feel less shame about your journey.

Remember,

Nihil durat in aeternum. Nothing Lasts Forever.